Terminally Grand?Heritage, Tourism and the Everyday at Grand Central Terminal

Courtney CauthonNovember 2003

Tourist ProductionsProfessor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

I would like to give a special thanks to Joseph Svehlak for his many wonderful and inspiring tours of Grand Central Terminal. Without his love for Grand Central this paper

would not be what it is.

“Travel (like walking) is a substitute for the legends that used to open up space to something different. What does travel ultimately produce if it is not, by a sort of reversal, “an exploration of the deserted places

of my memory,” the return to nearby exoticism by way of a detour through distant place, and the “discovery” of relics and legends: “fleeting visions of the French countryside,” “fragments of music and poetry,” in short, something like an “uprooting in one’s origins (Heidegger)? What this walking exile

produces is precisely the body of legends that is currently lacking in one’s own vicinity; it is a fiction…”1

Grand Central Terminal. Terminal/terminus/terminally? The forming of a

boundary, the coming to a limit, approaching death, the end point: Grand Central

Terminal. Constructed at the beginning of the last century Grand Central Terminal has

been and continues to be a portal, an entrance into New York City. It sits both literally

and figuratively on a threshold. It is the site between the traveler’s reality and the legend,

as de Certeau suggests, that is in the continual process of being created as one embodies

the acts of travel. Grand Central is both the creator and potential destroyer (the

terminus?) of the traveler’s desires. It is the place where the distance traveler and the

traveler of the everyday meet and together they “explore the deserted places of their

memories.” Architecturally Grand Central is the stage on which these memories, both

real and fictitious, are performed. As either an entrance to the city or a final destination

for a journey to the city, Grand Central Terminal is a pivotal point in the formation and

reproduction of constructed ideals and histories of the city that lies just beyond its walls.

In this way the space literally becomes a boundary, a limit, an end point. It is the place

that distinguishes certain memories, histories, and practices of the city. Grand Central

Terminal therefore becomes a form of New York heritage fully staged both in stone and

human flesh. It is a living snapshot of a remembered New York while at the same time it

is an active sketch of a future that is yet to come.

Straddling the gap between past, present and future Grand Central Terminal

functions as a multiuse site in an attempt to contain and maintain its history. Structurally

the site is a city landmark. It is a piece of property designated as holding certain

historical value. It references a particular historical time and through its act of stillness,

it’s physical presence standing on 42nd Street between Vanderbilt and Lexington

Avenues, it narrates a story between the historic and modern New York. Even though

Grand Central is a landmarked building it is also a modern working train terminal. It is a

place that provides access to and from the city for suburban commuters. Unlike many

other historical landmarks and sites within the city Grand Central Terminal is still used

for the purpose that it was built. It has not become a museum sectioned off from the city,

frozen in time. Instead it is a place that recognizes the significance of its historical past,

but at the same time pushes forward in order to be useful and relevant to the modern life

of the city. Similar to the viaduct that connects the main terminal to Park Avenue, Grand

Central itself functions as a bridge; it is a point of junction between the past, present and

future. To be in Grand Central is to in one way step into another historical time, while at

the same moment to perform in the present, and work toward constructing a future. To

be in Grand Central is to experience, at the same time, the collapse of linear time and the

convergence of two kinds of travelers: those of the everyday and those who cover

distance. Somewhere within a negotiation of time, space, and people Grand Central

Terminal produces and sustains a form of New York heritage.

In order to begin to understand this relationship between heritage, tourism and the

everyday it is important to place the site in a historical context. From within this

framework one is able work outward in order to examine and analyze how the site has

come to function as a place where these three performances (heritage, tourism, and the

everyday) are created. An analysis of these performances will be done through the lens

of the weekly walking tour of the terminal. The walking tour provides a structure for

viewing the site; however it does not specifically attend to the performances of heritage,

tourism and the everyday. The tour, though, does gesture toward what it leaves out and it

also provides traces that can be gathered and reassembled in an attempt to open a

dialogue about the significance of Grand Central Terminal as a

symbol/representation/icon of New York City.

At the turn of the last century designs for a new train terminal in New York City

were being considered. These designs were to replace the Grand Central Depot that was

built by Commodore Vanderbilt earlier in the century. By 1903 decisions had been made

to use the designs proposed by Whitney Warren of the architectural firm Warren and

Whitmore. However, Whitmore and Warren were to work in conjunction with the firm

Reed and Stem in order to complete the project. Warren, who is most credited for the

design had been schooled in architecture at the Ecole de Beaux- Arts in Paris.2 This

training lies at the heart of the design for Grand Central Terminal. As a type of

architectural style, beaux-arts designs hinge on a desire to inspire awe. They work to

produce a feeling of grandeur in those who encounter them. The outside façade of the

structure is to mirror what is contained within the building and both the inside and

outside are to position the body in such a way that it gains a new sense of itself.3 Grand

Central Terminal does just this; it functions as a space that creates a sensation of splendor

in those who engage with it.

To perform daily tasks at Grand Central is to turn the mundane into something

extraordinary. The space resonates with a kind of charged energy. In his book on the

history, design, and engineering of the terminal Kurt Schlichting proposes that, “The

Grand Concourse, the central element of the building, provides a secular cathedral to the

spirit of commerce and the exuberance of travel. It continues to serve as both a gateway

to the city and as a magnificent public building that lifts the spirits of all who pass

through it.”4 Schlichting’s assertion suggests that the design elements of the building

work together in order to reconfigure the bodies that pass through them. The vaulted

ceilings of the grand concourse give height and evoke a sense of openness that makes one

feel as though they were outside. This feeing is strengthened by the mural of the night

sky that covers the entire ceiling. The room draws the eye upwards and its sheer

magnitude provides the body with a new sense of scale. The grand staircases on either

end of the concourse echo those in the great opera houses of Europe and they offer a

place for people to both view and be viewed. To stand on the balcony of either staircase

is to place the body in a position of power; it is here that the eye can take in the entire

space. The arched windows on the east and west ends of the grand concourse are

reminiscent of the Arc de Triumph and signal a grand entrance to the city. These arches,

the staircases, and the volume of the space all endow the place with a particular “larger

than life” quality. It is this quality that stimulates the overall ambiance of the space and it

is from this ambiance that the place has the ability to manipulate the way that the body

feels and behaves has it performs its everyday tasks within the space.

More than anything Warren’s beaux arts design for Grand Central Terminal

creates an extraordinary space out of the most ordinary of places. The notion of an

extraordinary space is a fundamental characteristic of a tourist site according to Chris

Rojek who states that a tourist site is, “a spatial location which is distinguished from

everyday life by virtue of its natural, historical, or cultural extraordinariness.”5 Rojek

continues to suggest that, “[T]ravel sights are usually physically distant from our ordinary

locale. The remoteness of the sight requires abandoning our everyday life routines and

social place and physically entering a new area. The physical movement to new places

and situations obviously invokes the unfamiliar. This, in turn, invites speculation and

fantasy about the nature of what one might find and how our ordinary assumptions and

practices regarding everyday life may be limited.”6 Grand Central although extraordinary

does not require that one travel far in order to be taken to a place of wonder. Instead

Grand Central seems to mediate a sense of “abandoning our everyday life routines” while

in the process of carrying these routines out. It provides a place where people can meet,

eat, gather, shop, explore, and be entertained all within the structure of the everyday life

of the city. The extraordinariness of the design and the stories that are attached to the

building fester a desire to indulge in the fantasies that creep into the mind as one passes

through the grand concourse. In a sense being present in Grand Central is a form of

recalling a historical past. It is the evocation of de Certeau’s walking exile and Rojek’s

invitation for speculation. Grand Central, although not remote in terms of location, has

the potential to take a visitor out of the hustle and bustle of the everyday and into a place

1 De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkley: University of California Press, 107.2 Schlichting, Kurt C. 2001. Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering and Architecture in New York City. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, p.121.3 Ibid., p. 141.4 Ibid., p. 146.5 Rojek, Chris and Urry, John. Eds. 1997. Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory. London and New York: Routledge, p. 52.6 Ibid., p. 53.

that seems distant and removed from the outside city. This removal from the outside is of

course not a total break form the outside because Grand Central’s remoteness is always

influenced by the city that it stands within. Grand Central is thus constantly in the

process of negotiating the fine line between life of the everyday and life of the tourist.

Because Grand Central Terminal sits on the threshold between being a tourist

destination and being a site for the production of everyday life “tourism” as a practice

becomes structured in very particular ways throughout he terminal. In order to

understand the function of tourism in Grand Central it is important to first look at how the

“tourists” can be defined. There are three distinct types of tourists that can be found

within the terminal. There are literal tourists; those who are not from New York and

have come to the site as one of many destinations during their time in the city. These

tourists are typically found on the Municipal Arts Council tour or having their picture

taken from the west balcony. There are also literal tourists, not from the city, who are

using Grand Central not as a tourist destination, but rather as a point of arrival or

departure. Their engagement with the space is practical and straightforward. For them

the site is a transient space, a space that moves them from one place to another. The next

kind of tourist is the everyday tourist. This is a person who uses the space not as a

particular destination outside of their everyday experience, but as a destination within

their everyday routine. What is remarkable is that the space produces itself in such a way

that it shapes a kind of tourist, modern man moving through the world, out of people in

their everyday life. The space puts itself on display and asks those who use it to engage

with the city in a new way. This is done through the use of exhibitions, the holiday light

shows, lunchtime concerts, and the StroyCorps booth. Each of these aspects of Grand

Central fashions those who engage with the space as “tourists,” as everyday people

navigating the world in search of experience.7

Grand Central, though always a significant space within the city gained a new

kind of importance after the demolition of Pennsylvania Station in the 1965.8 This event

marks the impetus for a desire to preserve Grand Central Terminal and can be thought of

as the event that has brought Grand Central to the place that it is today. The relationship

between the two train terminals points towards the reasons why Grand Central currently

functions as an unofficial heritage site. Once Penn Station was destroyed, Grand Central

was the only remaining train terminal with architecture from the turn of the century. The

terminal came to symbolize the industrial and technological developments of the

twentieth century. It also signified a way of life that was rapidly coming to an end.

Therefore, with Penn Station gone and Madison Square Garden being constructed it was

strongly felt that the city needed to begin to understand and appreciate the importance of

historical preservation. The controversy that came with Penn Station’s demise prompted

the passing of the New York City Preservation Law. This law was to be implemented in

order to promote “civic pride in the beauty and noble accomplishments of the past” and it

was to work for the creation of historic districts, landmarks and educational programs for

citizens who live in and around these places.9 Grand Central Terminal can be seen as one

of the great accomplishments of preservation permitted through the passing of the New

York Preservation Law. With its ties to the loss of Penn Station and the passing of the

7 MacCannell, Dean. 1976. The Tourist: A New theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 1.8 Schlichting, p. 195.9 Ibid., p. 203.

preservation legislation it becomes understandable why Grand Central has come to stand

as a symbol of civic pride and historical significance.

The renovated Grand Central Terminal, which stands today, is not a heritage site

like others one might encounter in the city, such as Ellis Island or the Lower East Side

Tenement Museum. These sites one visits outside their daily life, they are destinations on

an itinerary established with the overt purpose of learning about a particular moment in

history that is believed to be of importance. Unlike these other heritage sites Grand

Central Terminal is a working train station. It is a place that is used for everyday the

activities of going and coming to work. Although Grand Central, does becomes a

destination on an itinerary and a cultivator of heritage, it does this in an obtuse manner.

Heritage at Grand Central Terminal is embedded in the everyday activities of those who

use the space. The space does not overtly define itself as a heritage site, but in its

presentation and though what it has to offer it functions as a place that stimulates a

relationship between the past and the present.

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett suggests that, “[H]eritage is not lost and found,

stolen and reclaimed. It is a mode of cultural production in the present that has recourse

to the past.”10 She argues that this production of culture in the present uses the past as a

foundation and through citation of this past creates something new in the present. Thus

heritage production is not a recreation of a past event or time, but a re-configuring of this

past in the present. During the process of re-configuration things are both added and lost

in order to create a version of the original. Grand Central is very much a place that has

taken a hold of its historical past and uses that to “add value” to what it has to offer in the

10 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 150.

present. An examination of the weekly walking tour that takes place in the terminal and

the process of renovation may provide a means to better understand just how heritage is

produced and played out within the terminal.

The tour brochure for the Municipal Arts Council and many of the tour books

state that the free weekly walking tour of Grand Central will, “Meet at the information

booth, main concourse.” This seems a rather precarious place to suggest as a meeting

point, for although the information booth sits at the center of the grand concourse it lacks

a sense of distinct place. The circular information booth would be difficult for any visitor

to miss however as a meeting point it does not provide a point of conjuncture, rather

provides a radius around which there are an infinite number of possible meeting points.

Because the circular information booth acts as a kind of guide though the grand

concourse; moving people along curved paths, swinging them around the space as if in a

catapult, the way in which it is used as a marker for the convergence of weekly walking

tour is interesting. It is interesting because before the tour even begins people are being

asked to maneuver the space in a very particular way. They are being asked to

experience their own bodies in space; to experience the how the architecture, although

still and silent, guides their body in particular ways.

In the grand concourse bodies are in a continuous dance. In his writings on Grand

Central, Kurt Schlichting indicates that, “Above all else, Grand Central’s design allows

for the steady flow of thousands of people each day to and from the heart of the

metropolis. The arrangement of interior spaces composes a clearly laid out pattern of

circulation so that passengers move from the street to their trains smoothly and without

confusion.”11 The design of the building to choreograph the movements of bodies is

11 Schlichting, p. 140.

more than evident when watching the tour group congregate. Watching from the west

balcony, the grand concourse is alive as people wined in and out of one another. Small

enclaves of people brake from the rhythm to offer a different pattern. The new pattern is

still and it emergences around the information booth. Several small groups of people

offer their part to this dance of stillness as they congregate around the information booth

at the centre of the grand concourse. These groupings are small, two to four people at the

most. They gather with cameras in hand, talk anxiously within their small groups, their

gaze shifts from the ceiling, to the clock which presides over the information booth. The

clock reads: 12:25.

The small groupings that have formed around the information booth seem to be

growing in number. A middle aged man breaks from his initial grouping, his family it

would seem, and asks a couple standing near him if they are waiting for the “Free Tour.”

The man answers with a “yes” and both return to their respective clusters. As the small

groups grow in number they create a tension between the flow of traffic through the

space; they resistance the impulse to enter into the flow of moving traffic. As people

make their way from the 42nd Street entrance to the escalators on the north side of the

concourse they must swing around the crowd that is forming at the center of the

concourse. The entire room resonates with the words that William Whyte used to

describe it, “Almost everyone is on a collision course with someone else, but with the

multitude of retards, accelerations, and side steps they go their way untouched. It is

indeed a great dance.”12

The clock at the centre of the dance now reads: 12:29. A middle aged man

appears, as if by magic, from the steady stream of moving people. He wears a tour guide

12 Whyte, William H. 1988. City: Rediscovering the Center. New York: Doubleday, p. 67.

badge and waves a handful of flyers. This gesture is used to bring together the small

clusters and form one large group. This new group consists of forty-five to fifty people.

The majority are out of town tourists who have come to experience one of New York

City’s most popular destinations. As the group pulls together those passing by turn and

look, the large group is out of the ordinary. It is something that changes the dynamic of

the space and this change is highlighted by those who acknowledge the groups presence.

Once gathered the tour begins. It is slightly hard to hear the guide as the vaulted

ceilings absorb the voice and the feet on the marble floor echo a hurried song. Even

though the voice of the guide dissipates it is impossible to ignore the large clump of

people who have positioned themselves on the west side of the information booth on the

grand concourse. Standing and straining slightly to hear the details of the restoration

project all eyes turn to the ceiling for a moment of revelry. As the group’s turns to the

“sky” above, the movement within the concourse continues. Those moving through the

concourse must roll off of the still crowd, wined their way around the people, and take a

different route. The tour group has claimed a spot and others must negotiate around

them. Two men in ties pass and as they do they roll their eyes and remark on the tour and

the people with cameras. These two men do not seem to understand that their ties and

suit jackets mark them as part of the scene, part of the “authentic everyday New York

life,” they are a part of what those of us with cameras have come to see.

The tour continues. It is given by members of the Municipal Arts Council and is

therefore framed very much by the mission and ideals of the Council. As stated on the

tour schedule the Municipal Arts Council has a mission to “promote a more livable city”

it works to “enrich the culture, neighborhoods and physical design of New York City”

they are “advocates for excellence in urban planning, contemporary architecture, historic

preservation and public art.” With these goals in mind the tour works to mediate a

conversation around a kind of “ethical” restoration of history and an integration of history

into the everyday lives of the people of New York. This narration offers an active

relationship between past and present and may be seen as a means of cultivating a sense

of heritage, a kind of belonging and responsibility.

Throughout the tour time is taken to observe the ways in which the building has

been restored so that it both functions as a modern building, but retains the qualities of its

historical past. What eventually arises out of this context is a sense that Grand Central

Terminal is a site of “invented tradition” as described by Eric Hobsbawm in his

introduction to the book The Invention of Tradition. Here Hobsbawm suggests that,

“’Invented tradition’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or

tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain

values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with

the past.”13 As Hobsobawm works through these ideas it becomes clear that ‘invented

tradition’ walks the ambiguous line between fact and fiction. The narrative of the

renovation of Grand Central that unfolds throughout the tour illustrates how the terminal

positions itself within this ambiguity. For example while in the lobby of The Campbell

Apartment the guide explains that during the renovation whenever any piece of the

original building was replaced with something new it was marked with the date that it

was replaced. So that in the future people will know what is “original” and what is not.

This process is one that is on going, any time something within the building is replaced it

13 Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, eds. 1983. Introduction. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1-14, p. 1.

will be marked. What is interesting about this process is that eventually all that will be

left of Grand Central Terminal is a shell, a skeleton of what once was. Each piece of the

reconstructed “Grand Central Terminal” will hold a different moment of time. The

building itself will begin (has already begun) to reflect the passage of time. In one

hundred years when the building is being restored once again each piece of the building

can be linked to its exact date in history. Therefore lighting fixture 1999 may become

lighting fixture 2099, banister 2000 becomes 2100, marble tile 2003, 2103. It is a never

ending process of finding traces and replacing them. The building goes on, however is it

Grand Central Terminal? What happens to it? It sits as it always has, but it is both

present and absent, both a historical monument and a modern building. It is an ‘invented

tradition’ in that it is accepted as what it is labeled, even though this may or many not be

congruent with an “authentic” past.

The information provided in the tour places the building in a historical context by

emphasizing the restoration process and what this has done for the terminal. This

emphasis on the historical and restorative aspects of the building makes the tour an

activity that opens the possibilities for the reliving of a historical moment. While the tour

is conducted in the present and is continuously interrupted by the presence of the

everyday, tourists are taken into a world that walks the traverse between past and present.

They are asked to suspend their belief in the present and retreat to a time that they may or

may not remember. They are to use the present to recall the past.

Two men join the tour for a short time. This is not uncommon; as they pass by

many people will stop to listen to the stories of the place that they are moving through.

However these two men grab my attention. As the guide paints a word picture of

Vanderbilt Hall, when it was still used as the waiting room for the terminal, the two men

exchange a dialogue around their memories of coming to Grand Central as young men

and waiting in Vanderbilt Hall. They recall showers that they took in the once

functioning shower room and people that they had come to visit. As the tour guide

continues the two men seem to quiz one another: “Do you remember that?” “Yes.” “Oh,

I don’t remember that do you?” These two men seem to be engaged in a creation, a

performance of memory. As the mean are guided by the stories of the tour guide and also

the space in which they are standing their stories seem to come to life. The connection

between story, memory and space resonates as these men speak. It also resonates as a

key element of the guided tour and the event of heritage making at Grand Central.

Throughout the tour the space is brought to life through the use of personal stories

and antidotes from the guide. Apt time is also given for those on the tour to add their

own personal stories to the space. The use of personal story provides links between past

and present and it also creates a space that seems private even though it is public. With

this in mind Grand Central can be thought of as a storehouse for memories. It is a kind of

memory container, literally played out through the installation of the StoryCorps booth,

which is located on the north side of the terminal near the Lexington Avenue. The

StroyCorps booth is a small soundproofed booth in which people may be interviewed and

have their story recorded. StoryCorps is an organization that works to celebrate, “our

shared humanity and collective identity” through the collecting of stories. 14 What the

presence of such an installation at Grand Central Terminal does is emphasize the

significance of story to the place. Grand Central would not be what it is today if it did

not carry with it the stories that it does. The stories collected at the Story Corps booth are

14 StoryCorps website, http://www.storycorps.net

stories both of Grand Central and of New York in general and they signify the kind of

living archive that Grand Central has become. The booth and Grand Central in general

have positioned themselves as holders of memory and cultivators of the relationship

between past and present. They are thus cultivators of heritage.

Before the tour ends, back in the grand concourse, the guide makes a statement

along the lines of, “You are all tour guides now. Bring others back to Grand Central and

play.” This small acknowledgement of the tour participant’s new status within the space

and the offering of the space to be used for the enjoyment of play is a generous gesture.

It suggests that the site, although a historic landmark, is a public place and should be used

by the public for their enjoyment. This offering of the space also allows for each tour

participant to now begin or continue a narrative with the site. We can each now insert

and create our own memories which can be held within the great walls of the grand

concourse. The tour is ends with a quote from Winston Churchill, “We make our

buildings and our buildings make us.” This seems a more than fitting close to the

architecturally focused history tour of Grand Central Terminal. There is something

within the interplay between the human figure and its constructed surroundings that needs

to be explored and Grand Central may provide the space to do this.

Even though Grand Central Terminal is no longer the first place that one might

encounter when they arrive in New York City, unless of course that they are commuting

by train from either Connecticut or Westchester County, it remains a point of destination

for people who come to the city whether or not they arrive in or leave from the city by

train via Grand Central. People venture to the terminal despite the fact that they may or

may not have a place to go. This is supported by the fact that the tour group had roughly

fifty people in it. The people come not to leave, but to stay. Grand Central Terminal is

not a place solely for those in transit, it is a destination point. It is a point that attracts

people for reasons beyond the functionality of the terminal as a train depot. The terminal

is a kind of public plaza, a place that functions as a “home away from home.”15

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, who took over the lease of the property in

1978, has been actively marketing Grand Central in this manner, as a public plaza and a

multi-use facility. This kind of marketing has reconfigured the ways in which one

engages with the space and has helped to make Grand Central a destination point for

reasons other than the buildings historical significance. The marketing campaign of the

MTA can be seen on the back of Timeout magazines, in subway cars and on posters

throughout the terminal itself that read sayings such as: “Yes…Grand Central is your

destination for: 5 Fine Restaurants and Cocktail Lounges, New Outdoor Seating, 20

Eateries on the Dining Concourse, Grand Central Market, 50 Specialty Shops, and Even a

Museum.”16 From such advertising it becomes clear that Grand Central is more than just a

train terminal it is site that can be and should be used for a multitude of activities and for

many different people. It is a place to spend the afternoon shopping, eating, meeting

people, and learning about the city.

To market the terminal like this shifts the use of the terminal in such a way that

debate has been provoked regarding the implications of bringing people to the terminal

for reasons other than to take a train into or out of the city. What is interesting however

is that the terminal has always been a place for public use and has always been a site of

15 Belle, John and Leighton Maxinne R. 2000. Grand Central: Gateway to A Million Lives. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, p. 165.16 Brochure put out by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Can be picked up at the Station Master’s Office in Grand Central Terminal.

commerce and entertainment.17 Still, the renovation of the space has brought with it

current concerns and ideas about what a historical landmark should look like and how

one should engage with it. Such ideas have sparked many responses to the renovation of

the terminal ranging from it being too commercial and bourgeois to it being a model for

future historical renovation and development.

In an article published just after the renovation of the site Herbert Mushcamp of

the New York Times suggested that, “Grand Central was built 83 years ago as temple to

the manly cult of work: hustle, bustle, button-down collar, the high-powered rhythm of

the 9 to 5. It will reemerge as a shrine to rituals traditionally associated with domesticity:

dinning, shopping and keeping up the house.”18 This shift in the genderization of the

space would be significant in the creation of a useable public space according to William

Whyte. Whyte, who has done substantial research on the people’s use of and behavior in

public spaces, has documented that the best used public spaces have a higher ratio of

women using them than men.19Therefore by creating a place that attracts women the

space has a better chance at surviving as a well used public plaza. The shift in the gender

identity of the space may also be a result of the change of the makeup of the workforce.

In today’s society there are many more women who work and thus use Grand Central not

as a place to have a late morning coffee or shop, but as a means of getting to and from

work. In this regard Grand Central in its renovation does, “reflect the breakdown of that

dichotomy and the gender stereotypes associated with it.” As a project it does “inject into

17Belle and Leighton, p. 165.

the urban workaday world functions and relationships more commonly linked to homey

comforts.”20

The restoration not only signals a change in the gender construction of the space,

but also a change in the use of the space by social class. Before the restoration, the space

had been rundown and was practically taken over by homeless who would use the

terminal as a night shelter.21 This unofficial use of the space has been prohibited and the

homeless have been pushed out and room has been made for Starbucks. What is

interesting about this shift in social makeup is that it places the concept of “public plaza”

into question. As Whyte notes in his book, City, it is the “undesirables” that are

continuously seen as being in conflict with public space.22 The undesirables are those

who seem to be on the fringes of society and pose a “threat” to the smooth workings of a

public space. How though does Grand Central Terminal in its desire to create a sense of

heritage, to perform an image of New York, reconcile the purposeful invisibility of one of

the spaces inhabitants? The space does not attempt to reconcile this discrepancy. Instead

like most public places the “undesirables” are relocated and situated within a frame that is

more comfortable for the general public. What is left however is an incomplete picture of

the public space.

In regards to the role of tourism in this shifting makeup of Grand Central it is

interesting to note that one tourist book (published before the restoration was finished)

states that, “Although undergoing a multi-million dollar restoration designed to preserve

18 Muschamp, Herbert. “Grand Central as a Hearth In the Heart of the City” New York Times, February 4, 1996, late edition: Section 2. p. 27.19 Whyte, William H. 1980. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Washington D.C.: The Conservation Foundation, p. 18.20 Muschamp. February 4, 1996.21 Belle and Leighton, p.106.22 Whyte. 1988, p. 156.

even more of its former glory, in recent years the station has become an unofficial shelter

for the city’s homeless, which may lesson your enjoyment of the green-and-gold zodiac

fresco on the ceiling of the Main Concourse…”23 A comment such as this only signals a

larger problem. This is the problem inherent in the relationship between tourism and the

realities of everyday life. Everyday life is not what the tourist desires to see or

experience, even though they may propose this.24 However, Grand Central Terminal is a

centre of everyday life. Therefore a tourist at Grand Central may be confronted with the

harsh realities of life in the city and in fact have an “authentic” New York experience.

This authenticity though is not the authenticity that many tourists want to be confronted

with. These questions of authenticity of a sight resonate with MacCannel’s claims of a

front and back vision of tourist sights.25 What Grand Central provides is a modified back

view of life in New York. At Grand Central a visitor is asked to encounter and work

within an everyday setting of New York, however even in this space of the everyday (the

backstage of the city) certain people and actions are kept out of sight, hidden so a not to

tarnish a memory.

It has been argued that renovations of Grand Central have turned the landmark

into nothing more than a glorified shopping mall.26 This may be the case, however it is a

shopping mall distinct from those that dot the landscape of middle America. It is also

distinct from the stores that line Times Square. Grand Central as a shopping mall is not

“Disneyfied.” It is commercial, but not to the point sacrificing its own identity for that of

greater cooperate America. Grand Central’s commercial feel is geared toward creating a

sense of community by providing local merchants with a place to sell their goods. Along 23 Zenfell, Martha Ellen. Ed. 1993. Insight Guides: New York City. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 136.24 MacCannell, p. 91.25 Ibid., p. 93.

the same lines, one is able to find a wide variety of “fast food” on the dining concourse,

but there is no sign of any of the large corporate America chains such as Wendy’s or

McDonald’s. In order to find such restaurants one must leave the Terminal and venture

across Lexington Avenue. The absence of these cooperate chains is deliberate on the part

of the Terminal. In an attempt to provide patrons with a “New York Experience” large

chain restaurants have been left out of the terminal and are replaced by local and regional

vendors such as “Junior’s,” “New York Pretzel,” and “Zaro’s Bread Basket.” On the

dining concourse one should be able to sample a variety of food that has been chosen to

represent New York City and its inhabitants. Thus one can eat a kosher meal at

“Mendy’s Kosher Delicatessen” or sample Indian cuisine at “Café Spice.”

Apart from the dining on the lower concourse Grand Central also offers world

class fine dining at restaurants such as the Oyster Bar. Restaurants such as this and the

higher end retail shops that line the east end of the terminal signal the division of class

within this public plaza. It is such places that have brought scrutiny to the renovations

done at the terminal. And it is also such places that mark the struggle not only in tourism,

but in everyday life between those who have the means to enjoy such places, and travel

and those who do not. Even though Grand Central must negotiate this division that it sits

between, the site itself still holds significance to people from many different

backgrounds.

What becomes most apparent at Grand Central is that to engage with the space is

to resurrect past memories and bring what is now absent from the space into presence. It

is the body which is simultaneously present and absent as it walks, gestures, and stands

that signals the ways in which space has been and can be occupied. Through its

relationship with its surroundings the moving body cuts across spatiality and temporality.

It becomes a medium, which gathers and rearticulates the tactile information that it

encounters. Located within the relationship between the body and space, history

becomes fragments of time and place that are dislodged and relocated as the body moves.

The body works to reenter/reform/re-perform history through its engagement with the

space that it occupies. The relationship among the body, space, memory/history is a

complicated patchwork of both bodily and spatial practices. This patchwork is held

together by the tension between the myth and the reality of experience. It is somewhere

within the correlation of the myth and reality of experience that a place is established

where memory/history can be formed in the mind and preformed in the body. Grand

Central is a site in which these bodily and spatial practices have the opportunity to come

together to create a manifestation of what New York once was, what it is, and what it

could be. It is therefore through the continuous action of people engaging with Grand

Central Terminal that will allow for meaning to be re-incited into the space. It is this re-

inciting of meaning that will allow for the space to continue being a public plaza that

produces a representation of New York, both past and present.

Standing as one of the best known landmarks in the city of New York, Grand

Central Terminal is the physical manifestation of what can be produced from de

Certeau’s “walking exile”. It is the memory palace, the house of legends, it is the fiction

that is constructed for what is lacking in the lives of those who encounter it. Fiction

however is not entirely untrue and Grand Central’s grandness is not completely imposed.

It is a grand place within a grand city and until it is at risk again of being lost is will be

required to play its part as “Grand.”

26 Kennedy, Shawn. “Bringing Symmetry and Logic back to ‘New York’s Living Room’” The New York Times, November 26, 1995, late edition: Section 1. pg. 41.

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